Randi Zuckerberg Complains About Private Photo Appearing on Twitter

Posted by michaels| Thu, Dec 27, 2012 - 6:07 PM

Facebook is well known for playing fast and loose with their members’ privacy, so how ironic is it that Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, Randi, is now complaining of a privacy breach by one of her friends? Randi used to be the former head of marketing for Facebook and is now the executive producer of Bravo’s reality series Silicon Valley. She was shown the new Facebook app, Poke, in a family setting with her brother Mark, where her reaction to it was quite spontaneously happy, to say the least. The moment was snapped by a family friend and Randi then circulated the picture privately to her friends, via Facebook.

However, Callie Schweitzer, director of marketing and projects at VoxMedia, who is not a Facebook friend got hold of the photo and posted it publically on Twitter. When Zuckerberg challenged her on this, Schweitzer apologized, saying that she was one of her subscibers and thought that the photo was public. However, Zuckerberg ignored her apology, saying on Twitter, “Digital etiquette: always ask permission before posting a friend’s photo publicly. It’s not about privacy settings, it’s about human decency”.

This comes after Facebook privacy issues have once again been in the headlines recently over their Instagram unit updating their privacy policy to allow users’ photos to be used by advertisers without their permission. The company soon backpedaled after their members’ outcry. It’s always different when the shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it?

Zuckerberg and Schweitzer have since deleted the conversation, but according to BuzzFeed, Schweitzer originally wrote “@randizuckerberg demonstrates her family’s response to Poke” with a link to the pic. Randi then replied “@cschweitz: Not sure where you got this photo. I posted it only to friends on FB. You reposting it on Twitter is way uncool.”